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From: cjh@petsd.UUCP (Chris Henrich)
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: Functional vs. Object-Oriented
Message-ID: <791@petsd.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Jun-86 12:03:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: petsd.791
Posted: Mon Jun 30 12:03:09 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 2-Jul-86 03:24:01 EDT
References: <8900035@uiucdcsb>
Reply-To: cjh@petsd.UUCP (C. J. Henrich)
Organization: Perkin-Elmer DSG, Tinton Falls, N.J.
Lines: 41

[]
In article <8900035@uiucdcsb> kadie@uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU writes:
>
>Two of the new waves in programming seem to be in total opposition.
>Functional programming languages, like FP, have us program with
>virtually no side-effects. Object-oriented languages like Smalltalk
>have us program with only side-effects.
>
>In the spirit of generating discussion, let me ask
>what reasons we have to belief that either paradigm
>is useful?

Both paradigms are found, in practice, to be useful.  Try them
yourself; you will probably have a success story or two to
add.
>
>Also, since they contradict either other, they can't both
>be right, right?
>
My first thought is that I've heard other such clashes of symbols 
before.  The one that comes first to mind is the dispute between wave 
theories and corpuscular theories of light. (Any further discussion of 
this should be transferred *totally* and *immediately* to net.physics 
and possibly net.philosophy!)  

My second thought is that the contradiction is imprecise.  The
reasonable way to state one of these paradigms is "Here's a way to
make good programs:... ."  Note that I do not say it is the *only*
way.  The second paradigm comes along: "Here's another."  No
contradiction.

Regards,
Chris

--
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